A colourful winter

It is possible to have flowering all year round, says Peter

- Peter Seabrook

It is pleasing to hear visitors to our Floral Fantasia area (at RHS Hyde Hall) exclaim: “There is still colour here!” Pleasing, because we work hard to ensure there are plants flowering every month of the year.

While dahlias and other frost-tender summer bedding plants were removed in mid-November, hardy cyclamen and the pretty hardy small-flowered pot cyclamen, plus Wallflower ‘Sugar Rush’, keep the flower colour coming. Last month, on a trip to trade shows in Holland, time was taken to visit a large herbaceous nursery in Boskoop, the place to see one of the greatest concentrations of hardy plant nurseries.